Gospel of John [16:33]. Why the believer has tribulation in the world [part 3]. Mat 5:3-12; Rom 7:24; Heb 12:11 .

Title: Gospel of John [16:33]. Why the believer has tribulation in the world [part 3]. MAT 5:3-12; ROM 7:24; HEB 12:11 .

 

MAT 5:3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

 

Poor in spirit - humility and insignificance before God.

World - self-assertion, self-reliance, self-dependence.

 

Happy is the man who recognizes his entire need in God's person and that before God he is void of all things.

 

Though the lazy, apathetic, carnal believer is forever a possessor of the kingdom of heaven, he does not see it in time and so gains no peace. The humble before God constantly look to their possessions given by God and affectively rest in them.

 

PSA 112:4

Light arises in the darkness for the upright [fears the Lord];

He is gracious and compassionate and righteous.

 

MAT 5:4 "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

 

Some interpret mourn as our response to our sins. I believe this is included, but not the whole picture of mourning. The word means grief, mourning, or sorrow. We are not to go through the Christian way of life with a glum face. We are commanded to cheer up and take courage. 

 

The second beatitude is a compliment to the first. A contrite heart is an emotional response to the intellectual reality of being poor in spirit or genuinely humble.

 

While being poor in spirit or bankrupt before God is a reality intellectually, mourning, or a contrite heart, is a reality emotionally. It is a response to being poor in spirit or genuinely humble. Therefore, we don't act mournful to be spiritual. We are to be genuinely humble and the contrite heart will follow.

 

This word modernly invokes a weeping over failure and sin or bad times and unfulfilled dreams, and though that is certainly a part of it, it is not the whole picture. The world doesn't hate sin as the spiritual believer does and so the believer has a certain contrite spirit about his condition at times.

 

ROM 7:24 Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?

 

ROM 7:25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.

 

This is not condemnation by any means but it is also not a laissez fare attitude toward sin in his life.

 

ROM 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

 

Recognizing the wretchedness of the flesh is a huge blessing to the believer. It's reality in us an in others will cause us to mourn and God will comfort.

 

What I love about the beatitudes is that Christ is teaching of the reality of the spiritual life for the fallen sinner who will struggle within the world system and with his sin nature. We are to rejoice always, but the reality is that we don't do so all the time because we are not perfect or sinless, and so we need comfort. Even when we don't sin but are attacked by others through their own sin and worldly influence we also find that we mourn and are in need of comfort. Our Father, our Lord Jesus Christ, and God the Holy Spirit are our comforters (Parakletos). If we always rejoiced and were perfect, why would we need comfort?

 

We are to overcome evil with good. Shall we continue in sin that grace may increase? Paul asked this in Rom 6 and went on to write that we who have died to sin should no longer live in it, but to walk in newness of life.

 

ROM 6:1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace might increase?

 

ROM 6:2 May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?

 

ROM 6:3 Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?

 

ROM 6:4 Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

 

The presence of continued sin in our lives makes for a certain understanding of our total need for God and that is the meaning here - a contrite spirit. However, this is not a weeping, glum person, but a joyful Christian.

 

HEB 12:11 All discipline [including self-induced misery] for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

 

HEB 12:12 Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble,

 

HEB 12:13 and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.

 

What is the emotional response to the person who does not have a poor spirit or who is not genuinely humble? He is haughty, conceited, egotistical, snobbish, self-important, etc. and in spite of his sins.

 

There is mourning over the reversionistic believer:

 

1CO 5:2

And you have become arrogant, and have not mourned instead, in order that the one who had done this deed might be removed from your midst.

 

2CO 12:21

I am afraid that when I come again my God may humiliate me before you, and I may mourn over many of those who have sinned in the past and not repented of the impurity, immorality and sensuality which they have practiced.

 

In both Corinthian passages we find the same Greek word used for mourn in MAT 5:4.

 

The undeserved suffering of the positive believer will also produce mourning for a time, but the comfort of God will bring exaltation, 1PE 4:12-13.

 

1PE 2:19 For this finds favor, if for the sake of conscience toward God a man bears up under sorrows [lupe: pain, heaviness, grief] when suffering unjustly.

 

1PE 2:20 For what credit is there if, when you sin and are harshly treated, you endure it with patience? But if when you do what is right and suffer for it you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God.

 

1PE 2:21 For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps,

 

1PE 4:12 Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you;

 

1PE 4:13 but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing; so that also at the revelation of His glory, you may rejoice with exultation.

 

Did Christ mourn?

 

ISA 53:3

He was despised and forsaken of men,

A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;

And like one from whom men hide their face,

He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

 

JOH 11:34-35

"Where have you laid him?" They said to Him, "Lord, come and see." Jesus wept.

 

LUK 19:41-42

And when He approached, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, "If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes.

 

The believer's contrite spirit will be comforted by the grace of God.